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What hes happened to Elspeth King, Curator of the People’s Palace, has focused
attention on the whole issue of Glasgow as Culture City 1990 and the future of
its people. On that point alone there is agreement with Pat Lally.

Unnamed Glasgow District Council executive sources are now telling the Glasgow

Herald that Elspeth King and Michael Donnelly, assistant curator, made their priority the
extension to the fabric and contents of the People's Palace rather than 'Glasgow's
Glasgow’ and the 1990 jamboree.

Nox Mark O'Neill on the other hand was heavily yahve? in preparing the! Glasgow's
Glasgow' exhibition at a time when the springburn, wall was falling into disrepair
and parts of the Springburn public park were being sold off to private house builders.

The connection now being made by his ow officials between the District Council's
eroun 4990 plans and the shameful treatment of Hlspeth King itself gives the lie to the
aden assertions by Labour, X Lally that there was no political interference with regard

to the appointment of the Keever of Social History..

The mechanism for the political decision taken regarding Elspeth King was Julian.
Spalding, Director of Galleries and Museums who chaired the appointment committee,
whose attitudes on the future direction of the Museums service are in accord with
those of his political masters, and whose involvement in the sacking of the staff
of the National Museum of Labour History in Manchester is well-documented.

Political direction

That political direction is one of finding ways of accommodating and utilising the
commercialisation and privatisation of local council services as laid down by the
Tory Government.

Glasgow District Council, led by Pat Lally, has decided to put out to private
tender 60% of the work of the city's parks department, and has introduced charges
for entry to the McLellan Galleries and 'Glasgow's Glasgow! thereby breaking the
long-established principle of free access +o our Museums and Galleries.

It has cut 10% off the budgets of all departments to pay for Culture City 1990.

It has shed many hundreds of its em Pay
Leer era ctemenine: employees! jobs as part of the process of

Now it is about to hand over one third

u ni of Glasgow Green to private d vs

make land available for private house—building on the Green. a ae

ce a

erie 'Labour' establishment is selling off the city's municipal silver to

An aera the deve opment of a new investorfriendly Glasgow based on "cultural

a ‘eis and tourism"....Service industries, including financial services
ministration, leisure and tourism", (All quotations from Councillor Lally).

The transfer of £157,000 from the Summ i
erston waste disposal project to mak
the deficit on 'Glasgow's Glasgow' is just one indicator of this, a

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The Culture of Capital

Of the Cultural Capital of Hurope title, Labour group leader says "We are going to
milk it for all it is worth" and use it to open up employment opportunities and
attract relocations.

The cynical language employed here says it all as far as Pat Lally's 'non-dilettante’
commitment to culture is concerned.

Having failed over many years to fight to defend jobs in Glasgow's traditional
industries, these misnamed labour leaders are now proudly proclaiming their misuse
of culture as a commodity to enconrage capitalist investment particularly in the
low-paid, non-unionised 'service industries’.

The future they project for the working people of Glasgow is one of an underclass
of people working for little more than their dole money who will serve and entertain
the tourists, administrators and financiers.

This is indeed the culture of Capital.

"A fact of life "

We do not see culture as 'clever and classless and free' ie ripe for exploitation.
On the contrary, it reflects prevailing class forces and much of it forms part of
the ideological cement which helps to maintain power in the hands of the few.

Much of the 1990 Culture City programme consists of traditional bourgeois culture
of a fairly unadveturous kind eg opera, theatre, ballet, art exhibitions etc. We
are of course in favour of wider access to the pest that bourgeois culture has to
offer.

Yet this is precisely where the contradiction arises, for so long as that culture
is privately-controlled and inevitably seeks to command the highest price it can
in the market place, it will continue to remain an elitist, activity attended
mainly by those who,can afford the kind of exorbitant prices charged by Pavarotti's
agent and the Harvey Goldsmith agency.

Does Bob Palmer's favourite Castlemilk punter, if she @r hed) exists, still feel
satisfied after the Pavarotti concert which contained only 32 minutes of her idol
singing, at anything from £1 to £5 per minute dependi on whether the original or
tout prices were paid ? Or was the Pavarotti do not ju one gigantic rip-off,

sanctioned and promoted by Messrs Palmer, Lally and co. ?

Similarly, in what way does the District Council's £400,000+ down payment towards
Frank Sinatra coming to Ibrox do anything to promote the culture of the people of
Glasgow ?

The plain 'cultural' "fact of life" which Pat Lally appears so ready to accept is
one of commercialism and greed.

An_alternative culture

There is an alternative culture to this commercial circus. One which is based on

the struggle of oppressed people, who in Glasgow are working class people, together
with those writers, singers, artists, playwrights, actors etc who identify themselves
with that struggle.

Glasgow has a rich tradition of such a culture and people, from Sandy Rogers and
James Macfarlane in the 19th century up to Freddy Anderson, Alasdair Gray and Tom

Leonard today.

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This kind of cultural activity has in fact been growing in and around the city in
recent years, as it has in Eastern Europe, South Africa and elsewhere. It has taken
place independently of the 1990 bandwagon, and continues to flourish.

¥ as possible
What the 1990 Festivals Unit has tried to do is take as much{ of this cultural
development under its wing and try to use it for its ow economic and political ends,

It is because they do not wish to be used in this way that some of our best writers
and cultural workers will have nothing to do with the Festivals Unit or their money,

Of course the most notable of this year's official events have been those like
the Ruchazie Street Project and Govan Stories etc which have involved and given
free expression to the (extra-) ordinary people of the west of Scotland.

The acid,test of these and other of the year's cultural activities will be how
far they continue to grow and develop once 1990 is over.

Tells the truth

We are not against culture, on the contrary,we aze wholly in favour of a culture

which tells the truth about the world, both natural end social, Such a truth cannot
but cut through the false images and myths of the Merchant/Culture City created by
the well-paid (and -heeled) advertising companies employed by the District Council.

Such a culture cannot but reveal Glasgow as a city of enormous contradictions,
ridden with class divisions between those suffering intolerable poverty and housing
conditions and the minority of "well-heeled" rich, It is one of the most prolé@tarian
of cities with a strong tradition of struggle, whose working neople are again
growing in self-confidence, and who can and will put an end to the kind of dirty
work being done to Glaszow Green and elsewhere by the friends cf the pron
developers,

Such a live culture is much more than the kind of spectator sport which the tourist
trade purveyors like Councillor Lally would have us believe. It releases all of the
creative energies which this society has suopressed, stunted or misdirected.

Once released, such energies cannot but have political consecuences, as the downfall
in Eastern Europe of more powerful Stalinist regimes than Group leader Lally's has
shown.

All_ the facts

We want +o know all the facts about the finances and cost of Culture City 19°00,
including its sinking Marie Celeste of a flagship, 'Glasgow's Glasgow’.

We want to know all the facts about the umpteen property deals affecting Glasgow's
public parks and other municipal land.

We want to know all the facts about Frank Lafferty's dealings with Glasgow District
Council.

What about an interim account and assessment of this halfway through 1990, Councillor
Lally ?

Workers City

Those who know us will know that the last thing we are is a group of dilettantes.
As for hysteria, that seems to be coming exclusively from the direction of Neil

" T demand that you stop " ‘lallace, depute director of festivals, and Pat ‘cultural
milker' Lally.

Councillor Lally's talk of"whingers"and %s11e pro-poverty lobby" sounds much the same
as the Tories denouncing those who dare to criticise their attacks on the poor.

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Campaigm

We intend to continue to campaign throughout 1990 and beyond to expose the Council's
follies of 49905 and to defend Elspeth King, the Glasgow Green and the people's
culture in ‘the Glasgow Keelie”

We will also continue to develop our own cultural activities whether in prose,
poetry, song, imaginative politics,other media or in our om series of Workers
City Nights,

Those who wish to help us are welcome to come along to our open meetings in the
Scotia Bar any Monday night.

Yes, the future of our city is in the hands of its people rather than in the
Council's, Let the politicians know what you think.

Ed Donaldson Leslie Foster Jeanette McGinn Jack Withers
Norman Bissell Ian McKechnie Tommy Keyes Farquher McLay
Elaine Smith Jim Kelman Brendan McLaughlin Jim McKay
Hugh Savage

Workers City